Chapter 8 - By Any Other Name
"Hey, guys, it's before five now! We can go get food from Daguerreo now!" Zidane proclaimed jubilantly. The rest of the crew were less jubilant.
"Zidane," Dagger began from the cot across the room, sitting up and rubbing her eyes sleepily. "It's after midnight."
"Yeah," Eiko agreed. "And if you feed an Eiko after midnight, she gets really, really grouchy!"
"But...food!" Zidane whined mournfully. The two summoners, however, had already dismissed the hungry boy, opting instead to go back to sleep. Zidane shook his head. It was hard being alone with nothing but an empty stomach. Then a thought occurred to him.
"I could eat Vivi!"
"No, you couldn't!" a small voice piped up, frightened.
"Sorry, Vivi," he called back with a sigh, then cackled evilly to himself. The boy wouldn't suspect a thing.
"If you hurt Vivi," an angry German voice called out...uh...angrily and Germaniacally, "you will have a fight on your hands, you monkey!"
"Of course not, Steiner! Geez!" Then Zidane put a hand to his chin. 'Hmm...canned food...Okay, that's it; I gotta go for a walk before I start wondering if Rasta-Chicken tastes like normal chicken.'
Thus deciding, the thief darted from the room onto the deck of the airship, where three groans of "Ooooooh...so hungry!" greeted him.
"Hey, Quina," he greeted back. "Hey, Avatar. Hey, Avatara." Then he shook his head.
"Oh, for crying out loud, we've gotta get you two new names. But how?"
"I know of a way," a voice informed him from the shadows. Zidane, Avatar, and Avatara turned to see who the mysterious man was.
"Cigarette-Smoking Man?!" Avatara exclaimed.
"Krycek?!" Avatar exclaimed, being somewhat less of an X-Files buff than his woman.
"No, guys, it's Captain Crew Member," Zidane informed them, vastly disappointed.
"...Oh," Avatara sighed, deflated. "But then...why's he got a Morley?"
"Yeah," Zidane agreed. "And what's that smoking stick in his hand?"
Avatar blinked.
"So...what does Morley mean here?"
"Bad hair," Zidane replied wisely.
"Well, then, you got a pretty nice mop o' Morley yourself, Zidane," Avatar smirked.
Zidane glared back.
"Shut up, Morley Man!"
"Nooooo!" Avatara howled, drawing puzzled looks from both. "He is not Morley Man! Morley Man is the old guy from the X-Files who stands in the corner and smokes cigarettes, and is played by William B. Davis, and he's Spender's father, and he might be Mulder's father!"
"You've...got some weird friends," Zidane commented, shaking his head.
"Yeah," Avatara agreed. "Mulder and Scully are weird."
"Right," Avatar drawled. "Friends. They're like this." The young man held his arms as far apart as they could go, briefly wishing that Amarant were there to better demonstrate.
"And between here-" He wiggled the fingers of his left hand. "-and here-" The right fingers wiggled. "-is the barrier between fantasy and reality."
"A barrier which, I might add, we have already crossed once today," Avatara reminded him severely, crossing her arms and pouting.
"Anyway," Zidane broke in, seeing that a fight had the potential to develop, "let's get going to Daguerreo. It'll be five again before we know it. And then we won't be able to get food again!"
"Hey! Guys! I went to all this trouble to rent this suit, found this smoking stick thing, and stand in the shadows, all mysterious-like, and you just INGORE me?!!! Well, I don't think so! You can all just stay right there, shut up, and listen while I reluctantly tell you what I know!"
"Uh...I gotta go to the bathroom," Avatar called out, his hand waving frantically.
"Shut up, sit down, and listen!!!"
Avatar dropped to the floor, pouting.
"Just for the record," he informed everyone, "I am not pouting. I am sulking. Pouting is for little girls. Sulking is for manly warriors of virtue."
"Anyway," Captain Crew Member continued through gritted teeth, "I know of a way that you could bring about this task."
"Eh?" Zidane's brow wrinkled. "Task?"
"You wanted to rename them," Captain Crew Member reminded him, straightening his suit jacket lapels.
"Oh, that?" Zidane scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Well, that was just sort of more of a passing fancy."
"No! You want to rename them!" the suit-clad crew member barked. "And I will tell you how, if you will shut up and let me!"
Zidane shrugged. Avatara was not so compliant.
"I thought you were a secondary character," she noted sadly.
"SHUT UP!!! Now, to rename yourself, or any of your friends, you must possess an ancient and mysterious card, known as the Namingway Card."
"That?" The young man laughed easily. "Oh, we found that way back in Kuja's book-case, right next to his copy of Oxford's Big Book of Fairies."
This caused everyone to erupt into a fit of giggles. Then, sobering, Captain Crew Member gave Zidane a mournful look.
"So, you already have it? I don't get to tell you the story of the long and perilous journey, fraught with danger and menace...and a bunch of slimy things with sharp pointy teeth?! You've already got it?!"
"Yeah, pretty much," Zidane confirmed with a shrug. Avatara giggled.
"In your face, secondary character!"
"I have a name," that same secondary character informed her, fixing her with a glare so piercing that she giggled some more, "and it is Bob Vious!"
"You're Captain BobVious?!" Avatar exclaimed.
"Well...not yet. I am not really the captain." Then he sighed, one lone teardrop rolling down his cheek. "Someday..." Then he brightened. "Ah-hah! You may have it, but do you know how to use it?!"
"Eh, we'll figure it out when we get there," Zidane assured him, sauntering back down below deck.
"IT'S NOT THAT EASY!!" Captain Bob Vious yelled after him.
"Whatever," Zidane called back." I'm gonna go see if, like, Freya or Amarant will come with us. I don't really feel like looking after these two yutzes alone."
He disappeared below deck.
"Boy, Quina," Avatar said to the sadly-ignored Qu, "you sure got the shaft in that conversation."
"Poor Mr. Quina!" Avatara wailed, her eyes shiny and quivering. Quina merely shrugged.
"Quina didn't want to get involved."
"AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!" Zidane howled in anguish, bolting back up the stairs. "I don't want Freya or Amarant to come along. They're.busy. I didn't need to see it! Someone get those two some damn clothes!"
"Of course we should," Captain Bob Vious agreed, patting Zidane's arm consolingly. "I'll get right on that. And as for all of you, safe journey and godspeed."
With that, the group of four jaunted off merrily...aside from Zidane, who was frantically trying to claw his eyes from his head...to the Water Citadel Shrine-Thingie.
Captain Bob Vious watched the four shapes melt into the darkness.
'Hmm...' he thought. 'I hope they know that nothing in Daguerreo opens until nine. Not as many people know that.'
Then, hearing a footfall to his left, he turned.
"Oh, hey, Amarant," he greeted, then frowned. "So, by the way, what were you two doing? You scared the living Bahamut out of Zidane."
"What?" Amarant shrugged. "Can't a couple friends use the sauna without being judged?"
"Sauna?" Captain Bob Vious blinked. "We have a sauna?"
"Y-yes," Amarant replied, stuttering for perhaps the first time in his life, his eyes shifting nervously from side to side.
"Hey, look, Avatar," Avatara chirped. "It's our waterfall! Waay! Waay!" Zidane and Quina watched in consternation as Avatara danced about in merry circles. Avatar grinned hugely, but refrained from dancing.
"I've got some happy memories of that waterfall," he proclaimed, then stopped. "Hey, isn't that where Daguerreo gets its water supply?"
Zidane's face grew pale, and a mouthful of water he had just taken from his canteen shot out of his mouth, taking out a hapless nearby Gimme Cat.
"I'm mad, meow!!!" the creature howled as it flew off the side of the cliff, landing with a satisfying squish.
"Eugh," Zidane grunted. "That was a disgusting thought...but for some reason, I feel a lot better now. Now, let's do this thang!"
"Thang?" Quina repeated. "What a thang?"
"Is that what Kuja wears?" Avatar asked, his brow wrinkling in confusion.
"No! That's a thong. We're talking about a thang," Avatara informed him. Then she frowned. "So...what is a thang?"
"It's like a thing, only with the wrong letter," Zidane explained tightly. "Now, SHUT UP!!!"
And with that, they entered the sleeping Daguerreo. And then realized their flaw in planning.
"Dammit! Not open until 9:00 a.m.?! I STILL can't get food?!" Zidane whined mournfully, the sound echoing through the still hall.
"Nine-o-clock?" Avatar repeated. "I didn't know that."
"Me neither," Avatara added. Quina nodded sagely.
"Quina knew."
"Then why didn't you say so?!" Zidane demanded, wheeling furiously on the Qu.
"Nobody ask," Quina replied sadly. "Nobody ever talk to Quina. I like blemish on party."
"That's not true, Quina!" Zidane hastened to say. "They're the blemish on the party, not you!"
"Yeah," Avatar agreed. "We're the blemish...hey, wait a damn minute here!"
"Bite me, Zidane!" Avatara shot at the young man, much to the rage of Avatar.
"You'd better not, Zidane! 'Cause if you do...RRRRR!!!!"
"Okay, guys, enough. Let's just try to get some sleep until something freaking OPENS around here," Zidane suggested, flopping to the stone floor and pouting. It was then that he caught sight of something shiny out of the corner of his eye, and was drawn like a moth to...something shiny.
"Daguerreo All-Night Namingway Card Redemption Center?" he read, scratching his head. "That's a little TOO convenient, if you ask me."
"You no fight it, Zidane! Let's do this thang!" Quina exclaimed.
"There's that thang again," Avatara sighed.
"Let's go," Zidane announced, pointedly ignoring the cat-girl.
"Gee, guys, I don't quite know how to tell you this," the shop-keeper began, twisting his feather-duster nervously, "but when we say Daguerreo All-Night Namingway Yadda Yadda, it's really more of a catchy name than a company philosophy."
"You have GOT to be kidding!" Zidane exclaimed, slumping forward.
"What are you trying to say, exactly?" Avatar demanded, suspicion creeping into his tone.
"We no open. You go away. Come back at nine," the shop-keeper said, pushing the young man toward the door. But Avatar still wasn't certain.
"Which means...what, exactly?"
"BUGGER OFF!!!!!!!!" the disgruntled man howled, then shrank back as the sound echoed and re-echoed off the cavernous walls of the citadel. "D'oh!" he exclaimed, not improving matters any.
"Okay, guys, let's just...go somewhere else and figure out what we're gonna do from there," Zidane interjected, wondering why in Gaia he was actively trying to prevent this shop-keeper from ending Avatar's life. Avatara brightened.
"We could sit down and have a meaningful, heart-to-heart talk about...stuff!"
"Yeah..." Zidane said hesitantly. "We could do that."
With a sigh, he headed toward the spot she had pointed the group to.
"Wow! I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm impressed, man. That was mature, insightful, thoughtful...I have so much more respect for you now!" Zidane shook his head, clapping his companion heartily on the shoulder.
"Thanks!" Quina beamed. "I do more than eat, you know. Quina a Qu of the world."
"What about us?" Avatar spoke up hopefully. "Do you have lots more respect for us, too?"
"All you did," Zidane began, shaking his head, "was talk about that imaginary sword of yours, and all she did was bat around a ball of string! You're both still idiots!"
"Masamune is not imaginary!" Avatar shot back, his eyes narrowing into slits. Avatara watched on, confused, her ball of string rolling away, forgotten. "Someday you'll find out just how not-imaginary it is!"
"Whatever, man. It's almost nine, though, so let's go get some breakfast!" Zidane suggested, bouncing joyfully to his feet. 'Food, food, food!' he reflected.
"Uh...weren't we gonna go change our names?" Avatara asked abruptly and alliteratively.
"Hey, as far as I'm concerned, your name is Mud," the youth informed her coldly.
"We've already established that it isn't!" she shot back, her eyes beginning to tear, her little cat-ears standing up angrily, her tail expanding to the size of three tails.
"Hey," Avatar noted, grinning. "If your tail expands three more times again, you'll be, like, a cat-o-nine-tails! Ah-hah-hah-hah-"
The sound of his laughter was cut off by a loud 'thud' as Avatara's sweatdrop made a joyful come-back, knocking him into the shallow water below.
"Dude!" he exclaimed, pulling himself from the basin and climbing up the stairs, "puns are cool!"
"Not when they involve my tail," Avatara bit out.
"But you've got such a nice tail!" Avatar protested. Avatara spoke no word, her eyes narrowing as she brandished her sweatdrop menacingly. Avatar held his hands up in a placating gesture.
"Alright, okay, enough with the tail."
"Alright, it's obvious to me that you two aren't gonna shut up until we get you new names - probably not then, either - so let's get going," Zidane suggested, rubbing his eyes wearily.
"Remember," Avatara reminded...uh...yeah, gazing fearfully at the booth, "we don't know what we're supposed to do with that card-thingy!"
"I'm sure it can't be that hard," Avatar said.
'Oh, gods,' Zidane thought, 'it's going to be more of an ordeal than I ever could have imagined.' Aloud, all he said was,
"Now, get in there, you two. And try not to break anything."
"Namingway Card?" the bored-looking young man behind the desk demanded. Avatar held the small scrap of paper out to him. "Thanks. New names?"
"Uh...I'm...Nat. No! I wanna be...Sephiroth!"
"He's Bezo, I'm Yezo," the cat-girl formerly known as Avatara informed the clerk with a sigh.
"That's twice you named me!" the newly-christened Bezo whined. "I never get to name myself! I'll never be Sephiroth."
"Congratulations. By the power vested in me you are now Bezo and Yezo. Get out. NEXT!!!"
At the bellow, a man who looked suspiciously like the former Percolator sauntered forward.
"Namingway Card?"
The Percolator held out his card.
"New name?"
"I no longer wish to be known as The Percolator. I never wanted to be a super-villain. I always wanted to be...a lumberjack!"
"New name, not life-story?"
"Oh, very well," the heavily-caffeinated villain sighed. "Twiggy the Lumberjack."
"Some people just have way too much imagination," Yezo commented sadly as she and Bezo left the booth. Outside, Zidane and Quina were already waiting, each with a Breakfast Burrito.
"All ready? Wow, that was quick. These things just don't have the pomp and ceremony they used to," Zidane commented. "So, who are ya?"
"I'm Yezo, the Yellow Priest!" She brandished her sweatdrop impressively...or tried to. It slipped from her grasp and fell into the fountain below. "Dangit!"
As Yezo leapt into the water to fish out her weapon of choice, Bezo crossed his arms and grinned widely at the two.
"I am Sephiroth, the Silver Priest!"
"He's Bezo," Yezo's voice drifted up from below.
"I thought your goal was to have less confusing names," Zidane said.
"Eh, we couldn't think of anything," Bezo informed him. "The guy looked really pissy."
"Hey, can you blame him? That's gotta be a boring job. Just sitting there all day, listening to people whine that they don't like who they are, and they want to be something else...that would drive me nuts!"
"So..." Quina began as Yezo skipped back up the steps to rejoin the men. "Why you not just say to everyone to call you something different? That way, you no need Namingway Card, and we no need to waste time come here."
An awkward silence. Then, as one, Zidane, Bezo and Yezo agreed on something for the first, and likely the last, time ever.
"Shut up, Quina!"
"Hey, guys, it's before five now! We can go get food from Daguerreo now!" Zidane proclaimed jubilantly. The rest of the crew were less jubilant.
"Zidane," Dagger began from the cot across the room, sitting up and rubbing her eyes sleepily. "It's after midnight."
"Yeah," Eiko agreed. "And if you feed an Eiko after midnight, she gets really, really grouchy!"
"But...food!" Zidane whined mournfully. The two summoners, however, had already dismissed the hungry boy, opting instead to go back to sleep. Zidane shook his head. It was hard being alone with nothing but an empty stomach. Then a thought occurred to him.
"I could eat Vivi!"
"No, you couldn't!" a small voice piped up, frightened.
"Sorry, Vivi," he called back with a sigh, then cackled evilly to himself. The boy wouldn't suspect a thing.
"If you hurt Vivi," an angry German voice called out...uh...angrily and Germaniacally, "you will have a fight on your hands, you monkey!"
"Of course not, Steiner! Geez!" Then Zidane put a hand to his chin. 'Hmm...canned food...Okay, that's it; I gotta go for a walk before I start wondering if Rasta-Chicken tastes like normal chicken.'
Thus deciding, the thief darted from the room onto the deck of the airship, where three groans of "Ooooooh...so hungry!" greeted him.
"Hey, Quina," he greeted back. "Hey, Avatar. Hey, Avatara." Then he shook his head.
"Oh, for crying out loud, we've gotta get you two new names. But how?"
"I know of a way," a voice informed him from the shadows. Zidane, Avatar, and Avatara turned to see who the mysterious man was.
"Cigarette-Smoking Man?!" Avatara exclaimed.
"Krycek?!" Avatar exclaimed, being somewhat less of an X-Files buff than his woman.
"No, guys, it's Captain Crew Member," Zidane informed them, vastly disappointed.
"...Oh," Avatara sighed, deflated. "But then...why's he got a Morley?"
"Yeah," Zidane agreed. "And what's that smoking stick in his hand?"
Avatar blinked.
"So...what does Morley mean here?"
"Bad hair," Zidane replied wisely.
"Well, then, you got a pretty nice mop o' Morley yourself, Zidane," Avatar smirked.
Zidane glared back.
"Shut up, Morley Man!"
"Nooooo!" Avatara howled, drawing puzzled looks from both. "He is not Morley Man! Morley Man is the old guy from the X-Files who stands in the corner and smokes cigarettes, and is played by William B. Davis, and he's Spender's father, and he might be Mulder's father!"
"You've...got some weird friends," Zidane commented, shaking his head.
"Yeah," Avatara agreed. "Mulder and Scully are weird."
"Right," Avatar drawled. "Friends. They're like this." The young man held his arms as far apart as they could go, briefly wishing that Amarant were there to better demonstrate.
"And between here-" He wiggled the fingers of his left hand. "-and here-" The right fingers wiggled. "-is the barrier between fantasy and reality."
"A barrier which, I might add, we have already crossed once today," Avatara reminded him severely, crossing her arms and pouting.
"Anyway," Zidane broke in, seeing that a fight had the potential to develop, "let's get going to Daguerreo. It'll be five again before we know it. And then we won't be able to get food again!"
"Hey! Guys! I went to all this trouble to rent this suit, found this smoking stick thing, and stand in the shadows, all mysterious-like, and you just INGORE me?!!! Well, I don't think so! You can all just stay right there, shut up, and listen while I reluctantly tell you what I know!"
"Uh...I gotta go to the bathroom," Avatar called out, his hand waving frantically.
"Shut up, sit down, and listen!!!"
Avatar dropped to the floor, pouting.
"Just for the record," he informed everyone, "I am not pouting. I am sulking. Pouting is for little girls. Sulking is for manly warriors of virtue."
"Anyway," Captain Crew Member continued through gritted teeth, "I know of a way that you could bring about this task."
"Eh?" Zidane's brow wrinkled. "Task?"
"You wanted to rename them," Captain Crew Member reminded him, straightening his suit jacket lapels.
"Oh, that?" Zidane scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Well, that was just sort of more of a passing fancy."
"No! You want to rename them!" the suit-clad crew member barked. "And I will tell you how, if you will shut up and let me!"
Zidane shrugged. Avatara was not so compliant.
"I thought you were a secondary character," she noted sadly.
"SHUT UP!!! Now, to rename yourself, or any of your friends, you must possess an ancient and mysterious card, known as the Namingway Card."
"That?" The young man laughed easily. "Oh, we found that way back in Kuja's book-case, right next to his copy of Oxford's Big Book of Fairies."
This caused everyone to erupt into a fit of giggles. Then, sobering, Captain Crew Member gave Zidane a mournful look.
"So, you already have it? I don't get to tell you the story of the long and perilous journey, fraught with danger and menace...and a bunch of slimy things with sharp pointy teeth?! You've already got it?!"
"Yeah, pretty much," Zidane confirmed with a shrug. Avatara giggled.
"In your face, secondary character!"
"I have a name," that same secondary character informed her, fixing her with a glare so piercing that she giggled some more, "and it is Bob Vious!"
"You're Captain BobVious?!" Avatar exclaimed.
"Well...not yet. I am not really the captain." Then he sighed, one lone teardrop rolling down his cheek. "Someday..." Then he brightened. "Ah-hah! You may have it, but do you know how to use it?!"
"Eh, we'll figure it out when we get there," Zidane assured him, sauntering back down below deck.
"IT'S NOT THAT EASY!!" Captain Bob Vious yelled after him.
"Whatever," Zidane called back." I'm gonna go see if, like, Freya or Amarant will come with us. I don't really feel like looking after these two yutzes alone."
He disappeared below deck.
"Boy, Quina," Avatar said to the sadly-ignored Qu, "you sure got the shaft in that conversation."
"Poor Mr. Quina!" Avatara wailed, her eyes shiny and quivering. Quina merely shrugged.
"Quina didn't want to get involved."
"AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!" Zidane howled in anguish, bolting back up the stairs. "I don't want Freya or Amarant to come along. They're.busy. I didn't need to see it! Someone get those two some damn clothes!"
"Of course we should," Captain Bob Vious agreed, patting Zidane's arm consolingly. "I'll get right on that. And as for all of you, safe journey and godspeed."
With that, the group of four jaunted off merrily...aside from Zidane, who was frantically trying to claw his eyes from his head...to the Water Citadel Shrine-Thingie.
Captain Bob Vious watched the four shapes melt into the darkness.
'Hmm...' he thought. 'I hope they know that nothing in Daguerreo opens until nine. Not as many people know that.'
Then, hearing a footfall to his left, he turned.
"Oh, hey, Amarant," he greeted, then frowned. "So, by the way, what were you two doing? You scared the living Bahamut out of Zidane."
"What?" Amarant shrugged. "Can't a couple friends use the sauna without being judged?"
"Sauna?" Captain Bob Vious blinked. "We have a sauna?"
"Y-yes," Amarant replied, stuttering for perhaps the first time in his life, his eyes shifting nervously from side to side.
"Hey, look, Avatar," Avatara chirped. "It's our waterfall! Waay! Waay!" Zidane and Quina watched in consternation as Avatara danced about in merry circles. Avatar grinned hugely, but refrained from dancing.
"I've got some happy memories of that waterfall," he proclaimed, then stopped. "Hey, isn't that where Daguerreo gets its water supply?"
Zidane's face grew pale, and a mouthful of water he had just taken from his canteen shot out of his mouth, taking out a hapless nearby Gimme Cat.
"I'm mad, meow!!!" the creature howled as it flew off the side of the cliff, landing with a satisfying squish.
"Eugh," Zidane grunted. "That was a disgusting thought...but for some reason, I feel a lot better now. Now, let's do this thang!"
"Thang?" Quina repeated. "What a thang?"
"Is that what Kuja wears?" Avatar asked, his brow wrinkling in confusion.
"No! That's a thong. We're talking about a thang," Avatara informed him. Then she frowned. "So...what is a thang?"
"It's like a thing, only with the wrong letter," Zidane explained tightly. "Now, SHUT UP!!!"
And with that, they entered the sleeping Daguerreo. And then realized their flaw in planning.
"Dammit! Not open until 9:00 a.m.?! I STILL can't get food?!" Zidane whined mournfully, the sound echoing through the still hall.
"Nine-o-clock?" Avatar repeated. "I didn't know that."
"Me neither," Avatara added. Quina nodded sagely.
"Quina knew."
"Then why didn't you say so?!" Zidane demanded, wheeling furiously on the Qu.
"Nobody ask," Quina replied sadly. "Nobody ever talk to Quina. I like blemish on party."
"That's not true, Quina!" Zidane hastened to say. "They're the blemish on the party, not you!"
"Yeah," Avatar agreed. "We're the blemish...hey, wait a damn minute here!"
"Bite me, Zidane!" Avatara shot at the young man, much to the rage of Avatar.
"You'd better not, Zidane! 'Cause if you do...RRRRR!!!!"
"Okay, guys, enough. Let's just try to get some sleep until something freaking OPENS around here," Zidane suggested, flopping to the stone floor and pouting. It was then that he caught sight of something shiny out of the corner of his eye, and was drawn like a moth to...something shiny.
"Daguerreo All-Night Namingway Card Redemption Center?" he read, scratching his head. "That's a little TOO convenient, if you ask me."
"You no fight it, Zidane! Let's do this thang!" Quina exclaimed.
"There's that thang again," Avatara sighed.
"Let's go," Zidane announced, pointedly ignoring the cat-girl.
"Gee, guys, I don't quite know how to tell you this," the shop-keeper began, twisting his feather-duster nervously, "but when we say Daguerreo All-Night Namingway Yadda Yadda, it's really more of a catchy name than a company philosophy."
"You have GOT to be kidding!" Zidane exclaimed, slumping forward.
"What are you trying to say, exactly?" Avatar demanded, suspicion creeping into his tone.
"We no open. You go away. Come back at nine," the shop-keeper said, pushing the young man toward the door. But Avatar still wasn't certain.
"Which means...what, exactly?"
"BUGGER OFF!!!!!!!!" the disgruntled man howled, then shrank back as the sound echoed and re-echoed off the cavernous walls of the citadel. "D'oh!" he exclaimed, not improving matters any.
"Okay, guys, let's just...go somewhere else and figure out what we're gonna do from there," Zidane interjected, wondering why in Gaia he was actively trying to prevent this shop-keeper from ending Avatar's life. Avatara brightened.
"We could sit down and have a meaningful, heart-to-heart talk about...stuff!"
"Yeah..." Zidane said hesitantly. "We could do that."
With a sigh, he headed toward the spot she had pointed the group to.
"Wow! I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm impressed, man. That was mature, insightful, thoughtful...I have so much more respect for you now!" Zidane shook his head, clapping his companion heartily on the shoulder.
"Thanks!" Quina beamed. "I do more than eat, you know. Quina a Qu of the world."
"What about us?" Avatar spoke up hopefully. "Do you have lots more respect for us, too?"
"All you did," Zidane began, shaking his head, "was talk about that imaginary sword of yours, and all she did was bat around a ball of string! You're both still idiots!"
"Masamune is not imaginary!" Avatar shot back, his eyes narrowing into slits. Avatara watched on, confused, her ball of string rolling away, forgotten. "Someday you'll find out just how not-imaginary it is!"
"Whatever, man. It's almost nine, though, so let's go get some breakfast!" Zidane suggested, bouncing joyfully to his feet. 'Food, food, food!' he reflected.
"Uh...weren't we gonna go change our names?" Avatara asked abruptly and alliteratively.
"Hey, as far as I'm concerned, your name is Mud," the youth informed her coldly.
"We've already established that it isn't!" she shot back, her eyes beginning to tear, her little cat-ears standing up angrily, her tail expanding to the size of three tails.
"Hey," Avatar noted, grinning. "If your tail expands three more times again, you'll be, like, a cat-o-nine-tails! Ah-hah-hah-hah-"
The sound of his laughter was cut off by a loud 'thud' as Avatara's sweatdrop made a joyful come-back, knocking him into the shallow water below.
"Dude!" he exclaimed, pulling himself from the basin and climbing up the stairs, "puns are cool!"
"Not when they involve my tail," Avatara bit out.
"But you've got such a nice tail!" Avatar protested. Avatara spoke no word, her eyes narrowing as she brandished her sweatdrop menacingly. Avatar held his hands up in a placating gesture.
"Alright, okay, enough with the tail."
"Alright, it's obvious to me that you two aren't gonna shut up until we get you new names - probably not then, either - so let's get going," Zidane suggested, rubbing his eyes wearily.
"Remember," Avatara reminded...uh...yeah, gazing fearfully at the booth, "we don't know what we're supposed to do with that card-thingy!"
"I'm sure it can't be that hard," Avatar said.
'Oh, gods,' Zidane thought, 'it's going to be more of an ordeal than I ever could have imagined.' Aloud, all he said was,
"Now, get in there, you two. And try not to break anything."
"Namingway Card?" the bored-looking young man behind the desk demanded. Avatar held the small scrap of paper out to him. "Thanks. New names?"
"Uh...I'm...Nat. No! I wanna be...Sephiroth!"
"He's Bezo, I'm Yezo," the cat-girl formerly known as Avatara informed the clerk with a sigh.
"That's twice you named me!" the newly-christened Bezo whined. "I never get to name myself! I'll never be Sephiroth."
"Congratulations. By the power vested in me you are now Bezo and Yezo. Get out. NEXT!!!"
At the bellow, a man who looked suspiciously like the former Percolator sauntered forward.
"Namingway Card?"
The Percolator held out his card.
"New name?"
"I no longer wish to be known as The Percolator. I never wanted to be a super-villain. I always wanted to be...a lumberjack!"
"New name, not life-story?"
"Oh, very well," the heavily-caffeinated villain sighed. "Twiggy the Lumberjack."
"Some people just have way too much imagination," Yezo commented sadly as she and Bezo left the booth. Outside, Zidane and Quina were already waiting, each with a Breakfast Burrito.
"All ready? Wow, that was quick. These things just don't have the pomp and ceremony they used to," Zidane commented. "So, who are ya?"
"I'm Yezo, the Yellow Priest!" She brandished her sweatdrop impressively...or tried to. It slipped from her grasp and fell into the fountain below. "Dangit!"
As Yezo leapt into the water to fish out her weapon of choice, Bezo crossed his arms and grinned widely at the two.
"I am Sephiroth, the Silver Priest!"
"He's Bezo," Yezo's voice drifted up from below.
"I thought your goal was to have less confusing names," Zidane said.
"Eh, we couldn't think of anything," Bezo informed him. "The guy looked really pissy."
"Hey, can you blame him? That's gotta be a boring job. Just sitting there all day, listening to people whine that they don't like who they are, and they want to be something else...that would drive me nuts!"
"So..." Quina began as Yezo skipped back up the steps to rejoin the men. "Why you not just say to everyone to call you something different? That way, you no need Namingway Card, and we no need to waste time come here."
An awkward silence. Then, as one, Zidane, Bezo and Yezo agreed on something for the first, and likely the last, time ever.
"Shut up, Quina!"